01c. 353 BCIn a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme. &It is also in the interests of a tyrant to keep his people poor, so that they may not be able to afford the cost of protecting themselves by arms and be so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for rebellion.Aristotle / quote ↗
03c. 353 BCWe shall learn the qualities of governments in the same way as we learn the qualities of individuals, since they are revealed in their deliberate acts of choice; and these are determined by the end that inspires them.Aristotle / quote ↗
04c. 353 BCEquity bids us be merciful to the weakness of human nature; to think less about the laws than about the man who framed them, and less about what he said than about what he meant; not to consider the actions of the accused so much as his intentions; nor this or that detail so much as the whole story; to ask not what a man is now but what he has always or usually been.Aristotle / quote ↗
06c. 353 BCWe maintain, therefore, that the first essential, the life and soul, so to speak, of Tragedy is the Plot; and that the Characters come second—compare the parallel in painting, where the most beautiful colours laid on without order will not give one the same pleasure as a simple black-and-white sketch of a portrait.Aristotle / quote ↗
09c. 353 BCYoung people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because life is sweet and they are growing.Aristotle / quote ↗
10c. 353 BCFame means being respected by everybody, or having some quality that is desired by all men, or by most, or by the good, or by the wise.Aristotle / quote ↗
11c. 353 BCWith regard to sleep and waking, we must consider what they are: whether they are peculiar to soul or to body, or common to both; and if common, to what part of soul or body the appertain: further, from what cause it arises that they are atributes of animals, and whether all animals share in them both, or some partake of the one only, others of the other only, or some partake of neither and some of both.Aristotle / quote ↗
12c. 353 BCWhen states are democratically governed according to law, there are no demagogues, and the best citizens are securely in the saddle; but where the laws are not sovereign, there you find demagogues. The people become a monarch... such people, in its role as a monarch, not being controlled by law, aims at sole power and becomes like a master.Aristotle / quote ↗
13c. 353 BCThe truth is that, just as in the other imitative arts one imitation is always of one thing, so in poetry the story, as an imitation of action, must represent one action, a complete whole, with its several incidents so closely connected that the transposal or withdrawal of any one of them will disjoin and dislocate the whole. For that which makes no perceptible difference by its presence or absence is no real part of the whole.Aristotle / quote ↗
14c. 353 BCDemocracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.Aristotle / quote ↗
16c. 353 BCI count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self.Aristotle / quote ↗
18c. 353 BCLife in accordance with intellect is best and pleasantest, since this, more than anything else, constitutes humanity.Aristotle / quote ↗
19c. 353 BCHappiness seems to depend on leisure, because we work to have leisure, and wage war to live in peace.Aristotle / quote ↗
20c. 353 BCNeither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit.Aristotle / quote ↗
21c. 353 BCNow to exert oneself and work for the sake of amusement seems silly and utterly childish. But to amuse oneself in order that one may exert oneself, as Anacharsis puts it, seems right; for amusement is a sort of relaxation, and we need relaxation because we cannot work continuously. Relaxation, then, is not an end; for it is taken for the sake of activity.Aristotle / quote ↗
22c. 353 BCIt is impossible, or not easy, to alter by argument what has long been absorbed by habitAristotle / quote ↗
23c. 353 BCEvery skill and every inquiry, and similarly every action and rational choice, is thought to aim at some good; and so the good had been aptly described as that at which everything aims.Aristotle / quote ↗
